Leviathan Poem by Frank Halliwell

The bay from high atop the bluff; a jewel of bright translucent green,
The children's cries above the wind, 'A whale! Oh, look! A whale! '
One whale, then two, then three and four: at last a pod of ten are seen,
A rainbow dancing in the plumes and spray of massive tail.

They sail regally down the bay and mark their path with plumes of spray,
Sounding, rolling, diving, leaping high above the sunlit sea...
A joyous, ponderous ballet transforms an ordinary day
Into a magic afternoon we never thought we'd see!

And in the cobalt canyons of the deep abyss, beyond the shelf,
The language of the ocean depths; both haunting and sublime,
Is murmured by Leviathan, alone and singing to himself
The strange songs that have echoed down millennia of time...

The gunner aims; the deck gun roars; the azure sea is stained with red,
Radar above, sonar below, the quarry had no chance!
Fat profits fill the balance sheet, with little care for years ahead
When nothing but the whitecaps fill the ocean's wide expanse...

The whalers took our heritage and treated life with utter scorn
And in the purple canyons now the ancient echoes sleep,
And generations yet unborn shall never know... but ever mourn
The great gentle Leviathan, the singer of the deep.